Kaloogoomulla [Kalugumalai], near Tinnevelly. Another portion of the carvings and writings on the Rock

Print from an album of 41 albumen prints by Edmund David Lyon. Lyon wrote that these rocks ‘…are literally covered with inscriptions, which are said to have been several times copied, but have not yet been deciphered. The rock in places has also been hollowed out into small chambers, such as might be imagined hermits or recluses would have tenanted, but the natives, with their silly habit of worshipping everything, about which they know nothing, have shut up most of these cells, and will allow no one to enter or inspect them. The sculptures on the rock will easily be recognised as belonging to the Jaina religion, and both from the style of execution and the form of the letters of the inscriptions, which seem to be integral, they must be of comparatively modern date…’